A brilliant twin stick shooter that is not paying the bills
Sektori is a Geometry Wars inspired roguelike twin stick shooter that has quietly become one of the standout indie games of 2025. It has glowing reviews on Steam, with around 97 percent positive ratings, and a strong Metacritic score sitting near 90. Players who discover it tend to love it for its fast action, intense bullet patterns and neon drenched arcade feel.
Yet despite that critical love and enthusiastic word of mouth, Sektori is still far from being a financial win for its creator, former Housemarque developer Kimmo Lahtinen. And that gap between praise and profit says a lot about how brutal the modern PC games market can be, especially for small solo projects.
Lahtinen went public about the game’s situation after Sektori’s launch, talking openly about sales, player response and what it actually looks like to spend years building a game that might never properly pay you back.
Great reviews, tiny paycheck
Lahtinen explains that Sektori has technically just about reached the point where its indirect costs and overheads are covered. In other words, the money spent on things like software, services and other expenses is close to being recouped. But there is a major catch. His own time and effort over the entire development period has effectively earned him nothing.
By his own estimate, he has had no salary for roughly four and a half years while building Sektori. Anyone familiar with game dev knows that is thousands of hours of design, coding, balancing and testing. Covering even a minimum salary over that period would require a huge number of sales for a small indie game, and Sektori simply has not hit that level yet.
Lahtinen admits he went into the project fully expecting that he would probably never recoup his time investment. Sektori was meant to be a calling card, something that shows what he can do and appeals to a very specific niche of players who love classic arcade shooters like Geometry Wars. Even so, the strength of the reception has given him something he did not plan on having: hope.
With more than one hundred Steam reviews and overwhelmingly positive feedback, seeing so many players click with the game has been both surprising and encouraging for him. It is the classic indie dev tension. Strong praise makes it feel like the game deserves success, but the market does not always agree.
When long dev cycles collide with short attention spans
One of the most interesting points Lahtinen raises is how development time and player attention are pulling in opposite directions. Sektori took years to build, which is pretty common for a solo project with high production values and tight gameplay. But the PC gaming market right now is flooded with releases, sales and constant new drops on Steam.
Sektori will live on the store basically forever, but long term prominence is unlikely. There is always a new game demanding attention, and the discovery window for any single release keeps shrinking. Lahtinen notes that this reality is probably a big reason why so many smaller indie projects are getting shorter, cheaper and faster to make.
Games like Peak or A Game About Digging a Hole are examples of this trend. They are simpler concepts built on quick turnarounds, often made in a few weeks or months rather than multiple years. The logic is straightforward. If you can release more games, you increase the odds that one of them goes viral or catches a wave of interest from streamers and social media.
Sektori, by comparison, is a lovingly crafted tribute to a very specific arcade style. It is flashy and polished but also niche. For players, that is part of the charm. For a solo developer trying to pay rent, it is a serious risk.
Built for arcade veterans not zoomers
Lahtinen also shared some data on who is actually playing Sektori. According to the stats, players under 25 are basically not interested. The audience skews older, made up of people who either grew up with Geometry Wars or other classic arcade shooters and now get a kick out of that style returning.
He jokingly describes Sektori as a dad’s tribute band kind of game. It wears its inspiration openly and is more like a lovingly crafted throwback than a slick attempt to chase the latest trend. That is great if you are an older PC gamer craving pure arcade action, but it means Sektori is not exactly lining up with the tastes of younger players who have endless modern options competing for their time.
Another divisive choice is how little the game explains itself. Sektori intentionally leaves a lot of its systems and mechanics for players to discover. Lahtinen wanted people to experiment, fail, and gradually figure things out on their own, similar to how old school games used to be learned through trial and error rather than tutorials and tooltips.
He says he is a bit surprised at how many players have complained about the lack of explanations. From his point of view, it seemed obvious from the store page and presentation that this would be a game that expects you to dig in and learn by doing. But we live in a time when many players expect more explicit guidance, even in hardcore genres.
What is next for Sektori
Despite the financial challenges, Lahtinen is not done with the game. He is currently working on a patch to fix a few small issues and tweak the experience further. One area many players would like to see improved is the difficulty curve, especially the sharp spike when you meet your first boss during a run.
Sektori’s combat is already intense and spectacular, and a tough challenge is part of its identity. But smoothing out that early boss difficulty could help more new players get hooked instead of bounced out.
In the end, Sektori is a great example of the strange reality of modern PC gaming. You can build an excellent, polished, well loved game and still struggle to make a living from it. For players, that means some of the best experiences on Steam are coming from creators who are taking huge personal risks for relatively little reward.
If you are into fast twin stick shooters, roguelike runs and glowing neon chaos that feels right at home on PC or a handheld, Sektori is exactly that kind of passion project. Just know that behind the tight controls and beautiful explosions sits a solo dev hoping that critical acclaim eventually turns into something closer to a sustainable career.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/action/sektori-developer-says-the-response-to-his-geometry-wars-inspired-roguelike-has-been-awesome-but-the-games-sales-still-leave-him-with-zero-salary-for-4-5-years/
